What You Can Do With All the Time You Save With Web Governance

By Siteimprove

may. 12 2016 — Web Governance

Why does web governance matter? It seems like a question we receive almost every week – after all, in a world of never-ending digital strategists, what impact does one more strategy or process really make? When your web team is already short-staffed or overworked, why take on one more tool or daily task?

Okay, let’s pause here. Consider for a moment what project you’ve been excited about in the last year. Think about a new initiative that you just knew would take off and make your website (and life) easier…that never happened. You ran out of time, new projects took priority, you started a website redesign. Now imagine that you were able to complete that project, and had even more time to do projects just like it, all while still keeping up with your current responsibilities.

It is possible, readers! The importance of web governance isn’t just that it saves you time with manual tasks. It also gives you more time to work on these projects, like learning how to really use analytics or generate more leads via social media. Read on to learn how web governance can give you more time for all those projects currently on the back burner.

Create an Analytics Strategy

One of the best parts of automating daily web governance tasks is that instead of putting out fires, you’re now able to strategize and plan ahead. For many companies, analytics is a nice thought – if you weren’t already rapidly making changes to the website and trying to keep track of all of your content contributors, it would be great to sit down and address strategy…some time.

With automation tools providing peace of mind that your content is free of errors and broken links, consider how else you could be leveraging it. Do your website analytics show that testimonials receive the most clicks on your homepage? Are there pages receiving zero clicks or visits that are eating up staff resources? What content actually seems to be resonating with your visitors?

Take this time to evaluate if your content is reaching your original analytics’ goals, and set new ones for the future – even ones that may seem extraordinary. You may just be surprised to see what your website (and your team) can accomplish.

Launch a Successful Website Redesign

Similar to analytics, web governance tools allow you to be more strategic about website redesign. Instead of spending weeks or months taking inventory of content, you can quickly move from one phase of the website redesign process and base your design choices on data, not just personal opinions.

When stakeholders ask why the site navigation is changing, you can explain how user journeys reveal that it takes too many clicks to reach necessary content, or that visitors are spending more time looking for what they need on your site instead of actually finding it.

You can optimize your website from the beginning of the redesign process instead of spending time post-launch, and make sure that any style guide requirements are enforced from the start, instead of realizing you need to update every page with a required trademark symbol once your site is live.

Spend time doing “fun” projects – like social media

Many (if not most) web teams consist of staff juggling multiple responsibilities. Content contributors may be updating the website, managing social media, drafting case studies, and working on newsletters – all at once. If you’re on a web team, you likely have a list or a Word doc of dream projects, of content that would be great to work on “once you have the time,” or fun ideas that came out of a productive brainstorm session that continue gathering dust.

Now that you’ve established web governance processes, break out the great ideas! It’s time to launch that social media campaign or reskin your social media profiles. According to

Hubspot, customers aren’t just expecting to find you on your website, they’re also expecting to see you on at least three to four social media channels. So although it may sound scary, with web governance humming merrily away, you can take a step away from the website and focus on your other web presences.